WATCH THE LANGUAGE, MR MANNING

By RICKEY SINGH

IN AN environment of escalating criminality in Trinidad and Tobago, which has now acquired the dubious reputation from Jamaica as the "murder capital" of the world (on a per capita basis), Prime Minister Patrick Manning needs to keep cool on his public utterances in relation to sensitive political issues.

Two recent examples should suffice: First, in responding to calls from his opponents to hold overdue local government elections, there came Manning's surprising advice to his People's National Movement faithfuls at a "sports and family day" event at Tacarigua to "sharpen your political cutlass...”

"They (the main opposition United National Congress-Alliance) said they wanted (local government) elections. All I am saying to you, ladies and gentlemen, is to sharpen your political cutlass..." 

Local government elections, last held in 2003, resulted in a landslide victory for the PNM under Manning's leadership. It is now three years overdue. It could be held within the next three months--if the Prime Minister is really keen to have it in the face of a possible fatal fracture of the Basdeo Panday-led UNC-A, and the frightening levels of killings and general criminality with children among the victims.

In a multiracial society that, for all its significant social, cultural and economic progress, still reveals the burden of divisions between its two main ethnic communities, Manning's talk about readiness with "sharpen political cutlass" could be seriously misinterpreted.

Today, Trinidad and Tobago is more than CARICOM's most wealthy member state, and lowest level of unemployment--thanks to its oil and natural gas earnings. It is also a country in the grip of an unprecedented scourge of murders (already 400 and counting for this year); armed robberies, rapes and kidnappings for ransom.

It is, relevant to ask: Why should the PNM leader and Prime Minister, who has lead responsibility also for matters of crime and security in CARICOM, choose to use as a symbol of readiness for local government election a sharpened cutlass?

The second example of undesirable public language by Manning came last Sunday when addressing a convention of his PNM on Trinidad and Tobago's proposed involvement in an economic union with the Organisation of Eastern Caribbean States (OECS) by 2012.

Evidently carried away by his own flattering assessment of the necessity for an economic union, and later political integration, he warned that "we (T&T) will pay in blood" if regional unity fails to occur, particularly in the face of the global financial and economic crisis and related problems of "illegal immigration".

Not only was it unfortunate that such a startling warning accompanied what his critics view as a flawed economic/political analysis. It was done while Mr. Manning remains not the least interested in any form of national consultation --with the parliamentary opposition, private sector labour movement -- on economic unity with the OECS.

It is as if such consultations are irrelevant--despite his own warning of "bloody" consequences should economic union between Trinidad and Tobago with that subregion of CARICOM fail to occur.

-- from Barbados Weekend Nation